遗失的法老城市04（在线收听）

So we have the whole thing reading Ra-Messe-Shu marry Amon, or Ramesses, beloved of Amon. Pi-Ramesse, we know, had major temples, particularly dedicated to the god Amon. Any site we should claim to be Pi-Ramesse must have evidence for temples.

And finally, that'd be the home of the pharaoh himself.

We know very little about the palaces of the pharaohs, but you'd expect them to be very, very large with great open courtyards. The floors would have been of painted plaster, the walls as well. So that's the sort of things we would expect to find in Ramesses' palace.

So once you'd found the site you believed was Pi-Ramesse, you'd have to find the remains of these key markers to prove you'd really found the legendary city. And they'd all have to be conclusively dated to the time of Ramesses II. Find all of these, and you've found the lost city of Pi-Ramesse. The story of how Ramesses' lost capital was finally discovered began back in the 1920s when archaeologists were scouring Egypt's desert landscapes, looking for the lost treasures of the pharaohs. Somewhere out there lay Pi-Ramesse, still waiting to be found.

At the time, few wanted to take on the challenge of searching the vast and remote far eastern delta in search of Ramesses' lost city. But if anyone wanted to find Pi-Ramesse, this was where they had to go. And one man was prepared to take on that challenge.

Pierre Montet was one of France's leading Egyptologists. He assembled a team to embark on an expedition that he hoped would secure his name in the history books. He'd heard of a strange ancient site deep in the Nile Delta that'd gone largely unexplored, and he thought it might be significant. It was just possible that this site could be a lost treasure.